1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to technology of a metal plate forming method.
2. Description of Related Art
Metal plate forming is a process that involves deforming a metal plate (hereinafter, referred to as a “workpiece”), without removing any portion of the metal plate. One well-known workpiece forming method is a press forming process using a die, for example. While press forming is suitable for mass production, manufacturing the die is time consuming and very expensive, and is thus unsuitable for low-volume production.
One known workpiece forming method that is suitable for low-volume production is incremental forming. Incremental forming is a method of forming that involves pressing a rod-shaped tool into a workpiece and stretching the workpiece little by little while moving the rod-shaped tool, without using a die (see Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-341262 (JP 2006-341262 A), for example).
While incremental forming is suitable for manufacturing a wide variety of products in small quantities, when forming a workpiece from a flat plate to the final shape, there are drawbacks, e.g., the required distance of the tool path is long and forming it takes time because the moving speed of the tool is slow, so production efficiency is poor. Therefore, there is a need for a metal plate forming process that is suitable for low-volume production, and enables the forming time to be shortened.